If a man brings forth a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his being is not satisfied with goodness, or indeed he has no burial-place, I say that a premature birth is better than he,
“And the stronghold shall cease from Ephrayim, and the reign from Dammeseq, and the remnant of Aram be as the esteem of the sons of Yisra’ĕl,” declares יהוה of hosts.
The inhabitants of Shomeron fear because of the calf of Bĕyth Awen. For its people shall mourn for it, as well as its priests who used to rejoice over it, because of its esteem that has departed from it.
Thus said יהוה, “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I do not turn it back, because they ripped open the pregnant women in Gil‛aḏ, to enlarge their border.
and against her seed which comes out from between her feet, and her children whom she bears, for she eats them in secret for lack of all, in the siege and distress with which your enemy distresses you in all your gates.
His splendour is like a first-born bull, and his horns are like the horns of the wild ox. With them he pushes the peoples to the ends of the earth. And they are the ten thousands of Ephrayim, and they are the thousands of Menashsheh.